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Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Virgin boss Richard Branson are among those who invested $17m in a US company which grows meat in a laboratory.
Memphis Meats is a start-up company in California which uses living animal stem cells to produce beef and chicken in a tank using oxygen, sugar and other nutrients.
Memphis Meats says it is developing a way to produce real meat from animal cells, without the need to feed, breed and slaughter actual animals.
Joining billionaires Gates and Branson in the investment this week was Cargill, a traditional meat company and one of the largest agricultural companies in the world.
It has said that the investment gave it entry to the cultured protein market.
Memphis Meats created the world's first cultured meatball in February 2016 and cultured poultry in February 2017.
The Memphis Meats investment is part of a growing interest in plant-based products and laboratory-produced protein.
It follows the Impossible Burger, a plant-based product that resembles meat, which also received funding from Bill Gates and other entrepreneurs.
While Memphis Meats created the world’s first cultured meatball in February 2016 and cultured poultry in February this year, it is not expected to have any products for sale in shops until 2021.
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